


Mirror Image

by kinslayer



Series: The Valentine Effect [2]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Canon Compliant, Denial of Feelings, F/M, FAMILIA......., Mutual Pining, Noir Aesthetic, Pre-Relationship, Quest: Long Time Coming, Smoking, Unresolved Romantic Tension, some mobster bullshit, the same shit in the canon dialogue is here but with MORE THINGS...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 08:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16059530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinslayer/pseuds/kinslayer
Summary: After the events at the Memory Den, Nick has a favor to ask Valentina.And even now, he doesn't know that there is nothing he can ask of her that she won't do.“Keep talking like that, doll, I might just start thinking you like me.”Val chuckled alongside Nick, albeit hiding her cheeks from view. She knew that one made her blush, as innocent as he might have said it.Valentine usually had that effect on her.





	Mirror Image

**Author's Note:**

> i love nick so much hes so fucking valid
> 
> hmu on tumblr @ghoulification

“Nick...”

_“Hope you got what you were looking for inside my head,”_ came a voice, wrong and twisted, from the mouth of someone that it didn’t fit at all. _“Heh. I was right. I should've killed you when you were on ice.”_

Val froze. _No way..._ “No... _Kellogg_?”

“What?” and the voice, now confused and tired, belonged to her friend again. “What are you talking about?”

She stared at him, looking for any signs of deception in the yellow lights of his eyes. Nick wasn’t too hard to read, surprisingly. He wasn’t afraid to wear his mechanical heart on the his sleeve. Val admired that, and oftentimes wished she could be as honest about her emotions as Valentine was most of the time.

This time, though, he was unreadable.

“Val?” he called, sounding confused.

“If that was a joke, Nick, it was rather tasteless,” she settled for saying, testing the waters. She didn’t think Nick would pull that on her, but it’d be better than the alternative...

If Valentine had brows, they would be furrowed. “What _are_ you talking about?”

Her hope waned.

“You, huh…,” she said, looking elsewhere, “you sounded like Kellogg just then.”

“Did I?” he asked, casually - the same casualty to which he responded to Doctor Amari when she said there’d be risks to plugging Kellogg’s brain into Nick. “Hm. Amari said there might be some ‘mnemonic impressions’ left over…”

“ _Damn it, Nick_ ,” Val said, lighting a cigarette and practically shoving it into her mouth. “I told you, we should have found a better way-”

“And I told you there’d _be_ no better way,” he replied, now irritated, “what we did was our best option, and it worked-”

“And at what cost, huh?”, she said, taking a deep angry drag of nicotine. “You’ve got mneumonic-whatever left in you from Kellogg!”

“It’s not permanent, Val, and-”

“You don’t know that, do you? How can you be sure?” she challenged, smashing the leftover cigarette into the ashtray. She immediately regretted it, feeling tears start to build up. “How can you be _sure_ that you won’t always be tainted with-”

“I _can’t_ \- but what’s done is done,” he replied, staring sternly at her from his seat - like he could _lecture_ her about this. “Anyway, I feel fine, so let’s keep moving.”

Silently, they walked out of the Memory Den, letting the cold night air of Goodneighbor greet them. Val’s fists were clenched inside her overcoat’s pocket, and she refused to even look at Valentine.

Why did he seem to care so little for his own well being? He was so quick to let Amari load Kellogg’s brain inside himself - he wouldn’t even let Val argue. And she _tried._

She sighed, and stopped walking. Valentine stopped right besides her.

“I’m sorry, Nick,” said Val, finally directing her eyes back to her friend. “I didn’t mean to sound... ungrateful. I really appreciate what you’d done, and… your dedication. I just wish… I just wish you didn’t have to do it.”

“I know, Val,” he said, lightly grasping her shoulder. “I’m sorry for worrying you. But I’m not sorry for taking that risk. It was worth it.”

“You’re too good for the world, Nick,” Val said, smiling at him. “They really don’t make men like you anymore.”

“Pretty sure _they do_ ,” he grinned back at her, “didn’t we shoot some of them at University Point?”

“ _God._ Hey, Detective, I’ve got a case for you,” Val said, rolling her eyes, “it’s the murder of your shins by my left boot.”

“Keep talking like that, doll, I might just start thinking you _like_ me.”

Val chuckled alongside Nick, albeit hiding her cheeks from view. She knew that one made her blush, as innocent as he might have said it. 

Valentine usually had that effect on her.

She knew he didn’t mean to; that’s just how he was. The “ _smooth detective”_ subroutines were quite literally ingrained in his brain. It was just Val’s own bad luck that he was basically built to be her type.

Gentlemanly gestures, suave words in every other conversation, a joke here and there with a slight tinge of risqué… Any of that was enough to send her heart racing for a second before she recomposed herself.

Rather embarrassing for her, really. _Crushing on the detective._ What was she, sixteen?

“You know, that whole business with Doc Amari and Kellogg's memories…,” Valentine said, pulling Val from her daydreaming. “It got me thinking.”

“I hope you didn’t blow any fuses with the effort.” 

“You come up with that all on your own, doll? Anyway,” he said, his lips losing the curve of his smile, and his eyes looking more somber. “It's just... there's still some Nick Valentine history I've been wanting to put a bow on for a while now.”

“As in… old Nick?”

Valentine nodded, throwing the butt of his cigarette to the ground and stepping on it.

“I could use a hand, if you're willing to take a crack at it...” he asked, in the same tone he seemed to have whenever he asked for anything, even a conversation. At first, Val mistook it for upset, and then she’d recognized it as bashfulness.

Just one of Valentine’s many endearing traits.

“Of course, Nick. What’s the case?”

“This one's straight out of the archives,” said Valentine, nodding towards the benches near the entrance to the Third Rail.

“Once upon a time in the land of Boston,” he started once they’d sat down, “there lived a king of organized crime. Eddie Winter.”

“Winter was from my time,” she said, frowning, and stared at Valentine. “I remember him. Met with his goons a few times back when I… when I was in the family business.”

“Huh,” Valentine grumbled, in a bitter tone - the bitterness he reserved for whenever Val brought up her past life. “Well, if you knew Winter and his people, then you know he was a bad man... who did a lot of bad things.”

“As bad as they come,” Val said, and reached into her pockets for another cigarette. “One of the many, many reasons I am glad to have escaped that life.”

“Winter hurt a lot of innocent people…” Nick continued, averting his gaze to the night sky. “But he knew the end was coming. So, he sealed himself inside a personal shelter, located underneath the sub shop he used as a headquarters.”

“Hm. Figures that’d be why he disappeared. But, hey,” Val said, taking a deep drag from her cigar. “It’s not like he could run a mafia after the bombs dropped.”

“Well, here the story gets even more twisted,” Valentine said, and Val could swear his metallic jaw clenched before he spoke again. “The arrogant bastard wanted to cheat death. Live forever…”

“Well… that’s ambitious.”

“Isn’t it?” Nick finally looked at Val again. “He wanted to be able to come out of that shelter someday, into this brave new world. Sound familiar? Only Eddie didn't want to be a frozen banana,” Valentine said, smiling without humor.

“ _Frozen banana? Hey-”_ Val spluttered.

“No, no cryo sleep for him,” he continued, ignoring her. “No, he invested his money in some sick, crazy radiation experiment.”

“Radiation…?” She said, stopping mid-drag, eyes sharp on Valentine. “Nick, you can't be saying what I think you're saying…”

“Oh, I'm saying it alright,” he said while his smile somehow soured further. “Eddie Winter went and turned himself into a ghoul. Two-hundred years before it was fashionable. Hell, he was probably the first one.”

“How did he even…?”

“Well, he had the money and the resources, didn’t he? And I'm _convinced_ that he's still locked inside that shelter,” Nick said, looking grimmer than Val had ever seen him, the yellow glow of his eyes the dimmest they could be, “safe and sound. Ready to come out, and begin his evil reign all over again. I'm going to find him, and kill him, so that never happens. You in?”

Val took another drag of her cigar, and looked at Nick - really _looked_ at him. Of course she’d help him no matter what, but… Something was off. She’d never seen Nick so bitter and yet so determined before.

So… _fierce_.

“You said this was ‘Nick Valentine history’,” she asked. “How does old Nick play into this?”

“...I- I mean, _he_ ,” he started after a moment of hesitation, “was involved in an operation to catch Winter. It didn’t work as planned, as you can imagine, because Winter is safe in that shelter instead of radioactive dust inside a cell.”

“But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?” Val said. “There’s a personal element here. Isn’t there?”

“I…”

“Why do you _really_ want this guy dead?”

“Does it matter? He has to pay for his crimes, and justice has to be served,” he said, looking at the ground. “Now, are you in or not?”

“Damn it, Nick, do you even have to ask that? Of course I’m in. It’s just that…”

Silence fell between them. She looked at Valentine’s somber demeanor, and it felt like looking in a mirror.

“Something to get off your chest?” Valentine asked, eyes still on the ground.

“I’m not sure I actually realized it until I killed Kellogg, but…,” Val cocked her head to the side, and put her cigar down. “I never really thought I’d find my son, you know.”

“Huh?” Nick finally looked back at her, seemingly lost in the sudden turn of the conversation. “What are you talking about?”

“When I hired you, I knew we were looking for my son. But… what I really wanted to find was the man who killed my wife and stole Shaun,” Val shrugged, her eyes aimed at nothing in particular. “What I really wanted was justice. More than that, what I really wanted was revenge.”

Valentine looked down at the stones on the ground again.

“So, Nick? If what you’re looking for is revenge? I won’t judge you. Not at all. You better believe that I’ll be the last person to tell you not to pursue it.”

Valentine kept silent, and then stood up from the bench. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and took a deep drag.

Val always wondered if he actually felt anything doing it.

Blowing the smoke softly, he looked up at the sky, his face still hardened.

“I've got memories. Of a... of a girl,” Valentine finally spoke, and took another drag. “My girl.” 

“Oh. Oh, Nick…”

“They're not my real memories, I know that,” he said, his voice starting to break. “But the girl... she was real.”

Val stood up, approaching him slowly. She could swear his shoulders were shaking.

“She was beautiful, and innocent… And Winter killed her.”

“God, Nick, I’m sorry,” she said, and put a hand on his shoulder with a soft grip. Valentine turned his head towards her. The fierceness was still there, but the sorrow was more visible.

“Winter killed her,” he repeated, in a whisper, now looking Val in the eyes, “and now he's got to pay the price.”

“Yes, he does,” Val said, knowing just the kind of pain he was in. She put her arms around Nick and pulled him close. She knew a hug wouldn’t cure the kind of ache that death brought, but she couldn’t stand to just watch Nick suffer. 

Tentatively, Valentine hugged her back, and slowly relaxed in her embrace. For a whole two minutes, he just stood there with her, with his forehead touching the top of her head. It might have been an awkward position, given the height difference, but Nick seemed content, and so she just held him.

“So… knowing that… are you still in?” he asked, low, soft - hell, _bashful_.

Hadn’t he learned yet? Didn’t he know by now?

“Of course I’m in, Nick,” she whispered back, almost impatient.

He stood there with her for a while more, and, almost as if hesitating, Valentine slowly pulled back from her embrace, leaving his metallic hand on her shoulder.

Maybe it was selfish, but Val appreciated a little bit of touch to cling to.

“Thanks, Val. I’m... You’re a…” he paused, his eyes searching her face, “you’re a really good friend.”

“You were with me when I pulled the trigger on Kellogg,” Val said, trying to convey just how there was nothing he could ask that she wouldn’t do _._ “I’ll be there besides you when you pull the trigger on Eddie Winter.”

He stared at her, unreadable, and _something_ shining in the glow of his eyes.

Something like hope, maybe.

“Now, enough feelings,” Val said, smiling to disguise it when she averted her gaze. Staring at his eyes, and thinking _maybe hope_ might not be the wisest course of action. “Let’s go catch the bad guy, detective.”

From the corner of her eye, Valentine finally smiled.


End file.
